D&D 5E Abilities....Which check would you use?

iserith · Jun 25, 2019

BookBarbarian said:
The reality is I don't know what I would call for until I'm in the moment...

Jer said:
Honestly this is my answer. There isn't enough information for me to know what I would do.

Agreed. Arriving at an answer requires adding assumptions to both the context of the situation and the player's action declaration which are outside the scope of the original post. I think what a lot of DMs do in play is they jump to the mechanics before considering the situation and the character's efforts in relation to that situation and, based on that, whether the mechanics are even needed to narrate the result of the adventurers' actions.

In the original post, we're essentially asked to assume that the player has made an action declaration that has an uncertain outcome and a meaningful consequence for failure (otherwise there wouldn't be an ability check in the first place). Fair enough, that's workable as a frame for the question. But then, though we know what he or she wants to achieve, we don't actually know what the character is doing. Without that, even if we take it as a given that whatever it is calls for a check to resolve, we don't know what ability score to use or what skill proficiency. Thus, we need more information to avoid the DM making assumptions and effectively establishing for the player what the character is doing. For some DMs like me, that's a no-no. I want the need for assumptions like that to be minimized or eliminated and that's just a matter of the player adequately performing his or her role.

Satyrn · Jun 25, 2019

DMMike said:
Interesting point: if the player's score is lower than the character's score, asking for a specific approach borders on unfair. While I wouldn't accept "I'm rolling Survival to find out more about the tracks," I would accept "I look at the tracks to get more information."

I was thinking that it's clearly an Intelligence check to use tracking training to learn about tracks, and then I saw the discussion about what actions are involved. So I'm picturing two characters looking at the same tracks:

The Genius gathers all the data he can about the tracks, with actions, before making an educated guess - Intelligence.

The Wise Woman uses some folk tales to guess what local creatures meet the general appearance of the tracks, more glancing around than acting, and probably notices something not available through induction, due to sheer - Wisdom.

While the Fool pulls out the Big Book of Wilde Beasts from his bag of holding and leafs through the pages until he finds an illustration that matches the tracks - automatic success.

BookBarbarian · Jun 25, 2019

Satyrn said:
While the Fool pulls out the Big Book of Wilde Beasts from his bag of holding and leafs through the pages until he finds an illustration that matches the tracks - automatic success.

"Gronk like pretty pictures. Hey, ground look like pictures!"

5ekyu · Jun 25, 2019

Jer said:
Honestly this is my answer. There isn't enough information for me to know what I would do.

For example - is this a "clue" that the adventure needs the players to have in order to keep moving? Will the game grind to a dead stop if someone doesn't figure this out? Then they're going to figure it out and we'll need to work out a justification for it. (My usual tactic on this would be to find out what the "investigating" PC has for proficiencies, have them roll the most applicable one that they're proficient in, and on a failure they just get the minimum amount of info needed to keep the game going. On a success they get some extra info on top of that, more or less depending on how much they had to stretch to find a relevant proficiency - and yeah, I will let them pull a "hey Bob, come over here and look at these tracks" to pull in a character with a more relevant proficiency instead of making the roll themselves if that's how they want to play it.)

On the flip side - is this something that makes no difference at all to the adventure and the player is just scrounging for clues? Then I'll let them roll either Survival or Nature (whichever they think benefits them more) and give them some info on a success and nothing on a failure. (Typically I know which players at my table play the "amazing detective" archetype regardless of what game we play and are going to want to search every single nook and cranny and/or investigate every bit of color I throw into a scene, so I'll throw some things in to make sure they get their fun out of Batmanning up the scene because it makes it fun for them).

In between - if it's information that it doesn't matter if they know it or not but that will put them in some kind of better strategic or tactical position or potentially open up a new avenue for investigation if they know it, then I'll make a judgment call on the skill check based on how the narrative is going at the time. In this case it would probably be one of Survival, Nature or Investigate, but a lot will depend on the context leading up to the check and the background of the character making the ask. A character with a background as an wilderness type is going to maybe get to choose which one would be best for them to use, while a character who has always been played as a city-kid who only knows about the wilderness from the books they've read is probably going to get a strict Survival check to figure it out, maybe with disadvantage.

Script driven resolution is definitely an approach with a lot of basis in the source material fictions, lore and movies. Or can lead to oddball cases - like not being able to use shuttlecraft if the script is about transporter accidents- but it is common across the fiction.

There are even games where that is the core mechanic. The "roll for..." is more determinative or authoring not explorative. The "investigation" check is not a roll to search for a clue that *is* there, but a roll to determine that there *is* a clue there.

Others boil it down even more, with even more explicit tokens to spend to make clues.

The downsides of SDR (to some) are its potential continuity issues and basically a lack of portability. Saying "depends on script" gives little to go on collaboratively.

Then again, I knew a d20 content guy who justified ignoring the actual show provided combat info by saying "really, that says nothing more than where they put the squib" when his game mechanics actually did not match the source.

billd91 · Jun 25, 2019

Satyrn said:
While the Fool pulls out the Big Book of Wilde Beasts from his bag of holding and leafs through the pages until he finds an illustration that matches the tracks - automatic success.

Sometimes the "Peterson's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors" comes in handy. I still have my copy...

Satyrn · Jun 25, 2019

billd91 said:
Sometimes the "Peterson's Field Guide to Lovecraftian Horrors" comes in handy. I still have my copy...

But do you still have your sanity?

I mean, if your guide's come in handy . . .

jgsugden · Jun 25, 2019

I'd let the player tell me what skill they want to use and then set a DC based upon the suitability. My answer would also change based upon the skill used.

Survival (Widsom): 15 - "You are able to identify the tracks as canine. There are quite a few - less than 10 animals, but more than 5. One appears to be much larger than the other. They look like they were moving swiftly."

Perception: (Wisdom): 15 - "The tracks are small and have four pads each. It looks like the creatures walked on four legs. One is larger than the others. There are more than a few of them."

Investigation: (Intelligence): 15 - "The tracks you spotted were made in soft mud and show evidence of the mud being flun far and wide ... these creatures were moving fast. You identify 7 different distinct sets of quadruped tracks, meaning there were 7 creatures. One of them was decidedly larger, roughly double the length, height and width of the others."

Nature: (Intelligence): 15 = "The tracks are wolf tracks. The wolves of this region are often led by a larger dire wolf that assumes the Alpha role in the pack. That appears to be the case here."

Survival: (Intelligence): 15 = "You see that they're wolf tracks and think back upon the tracking lessons you were given as a youth. Wolves often hunt in packs, and that is what it seems you're tracking. When a wolf flings mud, it usually means it was moving fast, and these wolves flung mud far and wide. The size of the paw prints is indicative of size of the animal, and amongst the normal size wolf paws you find a paw print that belongs to a much larger wolf."

My goal is to allow players to suggest any reasonable skill and then to flavor the inforation they obtain by the skill they use.

I also allow Athletics or Acrobatics to be used alternatively in a lot of situations. For example, if you're chasing someone and they leap across a narrow river, I might allow Athletics to hurl the river or acrobatics to take many small jumps across slippery rocks to reach the far side.

GMMichael · Jun 26, 2019

Umbran said:
Take that 15 year old kid. How is it *really* different to say, "My sheet says I know about Survival, and I'd like to use that knowledge to acquire shelter in these woods," and "I'd like to roll Survival to find out more about the tracks"?

I mean, yeah, asking for a skill check is more metagamey. We can encourage description of in-game approach, sure. But to outright not accept a basic, relevant request seems... a bit dogmatic, doesn't it?

Thanks...for answering for me? Correctly, as it happens (it's more metagamey). I don't believe that I said I'd reject the request "outright" though...

iserith said:
Right, these are two different approaches to achieve the same goal and both can be described by the players as they say what they want to do which makes it easier for the DM to determine whether there's an ability check and which ability and skill proficiency applies. Neither of these approaches is the "one true solution" in a way that promotes the "pixel bitching" that some posters insist is going on. A DM like me does not want to guess what the character is actually doing, perhaps getting both the imagined task and desired ability check and skill proficiency wrong, because the player failed to adequately describe what he or she wanted to do. We can ask more of our players in this regard by setting the expectation that we need to know what they hope to accomplish and what they're doing to achieve it through a reasonably specific action declaration.

If all this boils down to, "hey player, role-play a little," then I would use it to follow my player's effective request: "I'm going to roll a die and you're going to give me what I want."

Jer said:
Honestly this is my answer. There isn't enough information for me to know what I would do.

Satyrn said:
While the Fool pulls out the Big Book of Wilde Beasts from his bag of holding and leafs through the pages until he finds an illustration that matches the tracks - automatic success.

I was going to mention the information problem, but I thought I'd roll with it. Satyrn - good snark, but given the information we have ("some tracks"), the Fool's book had better be pretty dog-gone big!

77IM · Jun 26, 2019

Honestly, I'd allow any of these checks, possibly with slightly different results on a success. It's much more important to me to keep the game moving than to dither about which ability/skill to use. Just use whichever skill makes your character look coolest and let's get on with the game.

iserith · Jun 26, 2019

DMMike said:
If all this boils down to, "hey player, role-play a little," then I would use it to follow my player's effective request: "I'm going to roll a die and you're going to give me what I want."

I'm not entirely sure what you mean here and I'm taking a stab at it, so please let me know if what I say below doesn't follow and I'll amend.

I think that roleplaying is just playing a role by determining what the character does, thinks, and says, as per the rules regarding the same. But in the process of that roleplaying, the player has a responsibility in the game itself to describe what he or she wants to do. If the player does not adequately describe what he or she wants to do, this makes the DM's responsibility of adjudication and narration harder or even impossible (at least without the DM making assumptions about the character and effectively establishing for the player what the character is doing).

This appears to be in evidence in the example proposed in this thread: Many people reach different conclusions as to what ability check and skill proficiency to call for because they have to fill in the blanks on what the player declared. If the player is reasonably specific, we might all be in more agreement about how to resolve the proposed tasks via the rules, barring different rules interpretations. This is, in part, why I think it's important to ask more of players who are lacking in this department. Just as I as DM have the responsibility to describe the environment by laying out the basic scope of options that present themselves and faithfully narrating the results of the adventurers' actions based on what they decide they want to do in the context of that environment, the players have a responsibility to be reasonably specific when describing what they want to do and I'm going to hold them to it. It's not about "roleplay better" per se.